


Inside and Out

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, always being there for each other, but also just two best friends, this is fluffy nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt: Fitzsimmons + "I noticed" from 99 Ways to Say I Love You </p><p>Four times that Fitz notices something about Jemma when nobody else does, and one time that Jemma notices something about Fitz that nobody else does. </p><p>Five moments of Fitz and Jemma, knowing and loving each other better than anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside and Out

[1.] 

She drags herself to the door of her dorm, sniffling and miserable. Peaking through the hole into the hallway, she sees a familiar curly mop and a hand holding out a bag from her favorite diner. 

“Chicken soup for the sick Simmons soul!” he calls through the wood. “It’s bloody freezing outside, let me in so I can dry off!” 

Her face feels tight from the pressure and the dryness around her nose but she still smiles anyway, pulling the door open to find her lab partner shaking snow off his sleeves. 

“How’d you know I was sick?” she asks. Her voice sounds like she’s under water. 

“You weren’t in the biology building this morning,” he shrugs. 

Her brow furrows. “You don’t have classes in the biology building. I didn’t think anyone would notice I was gone.” 

He simply brushes past her into her room, rolling his eyes. “Of course I noticed. Eat your soup before it gets cold.” 

She smiles at him again even though it really does hurt, and when she lets out a little laugh as he clumsily pours it into one of her crappy plastic dorm-room bowls, it sets her off on a coughing fit. He just clucks his tongue and shakes his head, looking rather concerned as he ushers her back to her bed. 

“Christ, Simmons, lay down, would you? Y’sound like death.” 

“It’s not that bad,” she protests quietly. “It’s just the common cold really. At worst, it’s the flu, but I doubt it since I got the flu shot, and this particular strain of the flu vaccine was very strong because—“ 

“—because you bloody designed the thing,” Fitz groans. “Yes, Simmons, I know. Everyone knows.” 

“Sometimes I think Professor Butler forgets that.” 

“Yeah, well, she’s just a wrinkly old hag,” Fitz grins. He gingerly hands her the soup and fluffs the pillows around her, ignoring her raised eyebrows and smirk. 

“Who would have though,” Jemma hums as she breathes in the steam from the broth. “Prickly Leopold Fitz, such a lovely nurse.” 

He huffs at her. “My mum has an autoimmune disorder, I’ll have you know. I spent a lot of time looking after her—“ 

He cuts himself off, feeling uncomfortable with his overshare. He’s never told anyone about his mother’s sickness, or how badly it used to scare him when he was a kid. He especially never talks about how much it still scares him, now that he’s an ocean away and she’s all on her own. 

Jemma’s face softens. “She does? You’ve never told me that.” 

“I’ve only known you for three months,” he grumbles. Then he pauses, as if warring with himself, before he finally speaks again. “Besides, I’ve never told anyone.” 

Jemma’s eyes widen, but her mouth is busy slurping at the bowl in her hands. When she swallows, she tilts her head to the side in the way that she does when she studies something interesting. 

“I’m glad you told me,” she says decisively. “We’re friends. I want you to be able to tell me anything.” 

Fitz sits down in her office chair, his legs feeling a bit tingly. It seems an overreaction to something so simple as being called a friend, but he’s hardly had any before and he’d never dreamt that he’d be friends with Jemma Simmons, when he’d spotted her across the room at orientation, gesturing wildly and rambling about her latest, mind-blowing academic discovery. 

“Friends?” he hears himself ask dumbly. He wants to kick himself, but the words are already out of his mouth. Jemma full-on beams at him. Screw the pain. She has an honest to God friend for the first time since she was seven years old. 

“Of course,” she tells him, in the same way that she sighs “Oh Fitz!” during lab or when he eats an entire plate full of bacon for breakfast. “Best friends, even.” 

He hangs out in her room for a while, doses her with NyQuil, and puts on a show to wind her down into sleep. As she tries to stay awake to find out if Rachel and Ross will finally get together, she hears him mumble something under his breath. 

“Didn’t think I’d notice,” he grumbles fondly. “I’ll always notice.” 

It’s the last thing she remembers before she falls asleep. 

[2.] 

Her asshole Operations boyfriend breaks up with her the day before Valentine’s Day. Fitz was never a fan of the guy to begin with, but he’s never hated anyone the way that he hates Patrick. He hadn’t even had the courage to break up with Jemma in person—he’d sent her a brief text message at 9 p.m. 

She’d immediately rushed straight into his room in their new shared apartment, crawling right into his bed and letting out an anguished cry. It had immediately stopped his heart, and as she’d whimpered out what Patrick had done to her, he’d felt the anger rise up in him. Jemma had always trusted in people, seen the best in them and been whole-heartedly willing to care about those she knew nothing about. In her isolation as a child and as a teenager, this hadn’t been much of an issue—but now, after her rising popularity at the Academy and now at SciOps, she’d been faced with a new challenge. This was the third time in a year that Jemma had had her heart broken by some bulky jerk, and Fitz was really getting sick of it. 

He felt bad for her. That was it, really. Seriously. He just hated that she’d dragged his moaning and groaning self out to the mall and asked his opinion on five different dresses for her Valentine’s date with this prick only to have him dump her the night before. She had spent a shocking amount of money on a pretty, light blue velvet that had brought out the flecks of gold in her eyes. He’d watchd her pull it out of her closet, sigh, and shove it toward the back that morning as they’d gotten ready to go to the lab. And he just couldn’t have that. 

He takes an early lunch and tells her that he has a doctor’s appointment, which makes her nose scrunch with worry as she leans over one of the DWARFs. He assures her repeatedly that no, he does not need her to come, he does know all of his medical allergies, and please, Jemma, would you just leave it alone, nobody is going to touch me there! 

When Fitz has finally made a break for it, he pops in his earbuds, tightens his coat around himself, and heads off to the first flower shop he can find in search of peonies. Every time she’d bought flowers at the farmers market, they’d been peonies. She had an oil painting of peonies hanging above the headboard in her room, and she’d even tried to crossbreed her own gigantic ones in the lab. She’d never expressly said it, but Leo Fitz got his first PhD at sixteen years old, and he doesn’t need to be told that they’re obviously her favorite flower. 

The first shop he goes in is just one giant clusterfuck of roses and stressed out men around his age looking very concerned about the price of the flowers. He rushes out to the next one, and then the next, and becomes increasingly distressed when a quick google search tells him that peonies bloom in April. It’s February, and it’s cold as all get out, and he just wants to make Jemma feel better about getting Valentine’s dumped by some imbecile with impeccable biceps. 

He begins to resign himself to the fact that he may have to follow the lead of the poor sods in line at the overpriced florist, buy her a dozen pink roses, and call it quit. Before he does, though, he does another quick search for greenhouses in the area. According to the Wiki article, peonies are very resilient if cared for properly—perhaps there’s somewhere in the area he can get them. 

He finds a farm, in the middle of nowhere, gives the number a call, and the woman who answers laughs kindly and tells him that yes, she can get him a dozen peonies, but what color would he like? 

Fitz finds himself rambling nonsensical expressions of gratitude to the stranger and driving the two and a half hours to the greenhouse. 

He doesn’t get back to their apartment until Jemma is already home. His phone had died, the power zapped from using his GPS, and he finds her pacing in living room. He quickly shoves the flowers behind his back when she turns to him with a blazing expression. 

“LEOPOLD MOROGH FITZ!” Jemma shrieks. “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN? I HAVE BEEN WORRIED SICK! DID YOU KNOW THE POLICE REQUIRE THAT SOMEONE BE MISSING FOR FOURTY EIGHT BLOODY HOURS BEFORE THEY’LL START LOOKING?!” 

He grins sheepishly at her. “I’m sorry, Jemma. My phone died, and I had something I needed to do, so I—“ 

“What could have been so important?” Jemma snaps. “You should have found a way to contact me, Fitz, or come back to the lab just to let me know where you were going. I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere, and—“ 

“You,” he blurts out. 

“What?” she huffs. 

“You,” he repeats, face heating up under her puzzled gaze. “You’re what was so important.” 

He gracelessly shoves the peonies in her general direction, and it feels like ages before she steps forward to claim them. When he looks up, there are tears building in her eyes and he curses under his breath. 

“Ah, hell. I just—I know this Patrick bloke did a number on you, and I wanted to make your Valentine’s day less shitty, so—“ 

Jemma cuts him off by throwing her arms around him in a tight hug, careful to protect the flowers behind him. He feels her smile against his neck and he grins into her hair in return. 

“Peonies are my favorite,” she notes as she pulls away and beams down at them. 

“I noticed,” he tells her. “So, how about some Pad Thai? I’m starving.” 

“Oh, Fitz!” 

[3.] 

She’s been behaving weirdly ever since the virus, and he understands why. She’d nearly died and sacrificed herself for the entire team, but she’d been maintaining a very careful cover at all times. She’d always been incapable of lying, but suddenly Fitz wonders if he’s sure about that. 

He’s been behaving strangely, too, and he knows it. Jemma Simmons had been the only constant in his life, other than his mum. He’d always known that she meant a lot to him, as his best friend and as his partner, but he’d never known pain like he felt as he screamed for her not to jump. Watching her fall and even waiting for the Morocco office to release her and Ward back to them had nearly been the death of him, too. 

“Simmons?” he calls softly, stepping into the lab. She’s standing, gazing unseeingly out through the clear lab doors, through the garage and to the cargo ramp. Jemma doesn’t seem to hear him, so he tries again, stepping close enough to touch her. “Jemma?” 

She startles, gasping sharply and pressing her hand to her chest. “Fitz! You scared me!” 

He raises his eyebrows and tries to keep his tone light, but it still comes out heavy. “I noticed.” 

She releases a shaky breath and wraps her arms more tightly around herself, as though she’s holding her own pieces together. He’s not sure what to do, so he places his hand on her shoulder, drawing small circles with his thumb. Her hand instantly flies to his, gripping it hard as she releases her grasp on herself. 

“It’s the middle of the night,” he murmurs. “What are you doing?” 

She looks at him with such a broken expression, and he couldn’t have ever imagined his smiley, obnoxiously optimistic and amazingly curious best friend looking that way. 

“I’m different now,” she whispers, voice thick. Jemma tears her eyes from his and he moves to stand in front of her, blocking her view of the cargo ramp so that he can look her in the eyes. “I’m—I’m so scared, Fitz.” 

He moves quickly, pulling her into him and pressing his lips to her forehead as she releases a strangled sob. “Jemma, it’s okay, shh. It’s alright.” 

“I used to—to love this,” she hiccups. 

“Love what?” 

“Being on this—on this plane,” she whimpers. “This is what I wanted and you were right, I—I dragged you with me and—“ 

“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” he insists. “I wanted to do this.” 

“What if one of us dies out here, Fitz?” she bursts out, pushing him away from her so that she can look directly at him. “This time—this time it was me, but Fitz, I couldn’t live if you didn’t, and—“ 

“I feel the same way,” he interrupts. “And I almost had to.” 

She gulps down a guilty gasp and hugs him to her again. “Fitz, I’m so sorry.” 

“Not your fault,” he mumbles. “Besides, we fixed it, didn’t we?” 

“Together,” she answers, grinning against his shoulder. He smiles back and brushes his hand over the back of her hair. 

After a moment of quietly holding onto her and trying his hardest not to think about the way his stomach flutters at her touch, his body betrays him and he lets out a massive yawn. 

She untangles herself from him, glancing up at him with a little smile tugging on her lips. Her eyebrows raise in a question and he shrugs, tugging at his ear. 

“Just a little tired.” 

“I noticed,” she teases. “C’mon, then. Let’s get some sleep.” 

They head back to the bunks, and they reach his first. She lingers in front of the door and clears her throat lightly. 

“Could I um—could I maybe sleep in here?” 

Her voice cracks lightly and a wave of affection crashes over Fitz as he looks over his shoulder at her. “Of course, Jemma. Like the Academy all over again.” 

“Or SciOps,” she giggles. She follows him inside and curls easily into the wall side of the bed. He crawls in after her, and for the first time since the Chitauri virus, he sleeps dreamlessly. 

[4.] 

It’s been a little awkward, since they got Will back. Jemma tiptoes around both of them, and seems even more unsure of her place in the world than she did when she first came back through the portal with him. For some reason, Fitz had expected it to right her, to tether her back. The fact that it’s had something of an opposite effect troubles him, but Will follows her around like a lost puppy, asking infinite questions that receive progressively less patient answers, and he decides to leave her be, for now. Fitz doesn’t blame Will for his presence, and actually, grudgingly, rather likes the astronaut. He still can’t quite place how an astrophysicist couldn’t figure out in fourteen years what took Jemma just a few months, but he tries not to press the issue. 

He gets up early to finish running simulations on a new device that might prevent Lash—Andrew, really, but God, that would never stop feeling wrong—from transforming back and forth. Just as he’d thrown himself into reconstructing the monolith, he now throws himself in to trying to save another man that one of his favorite women loves. At least this time, it doesn’t hurt like hell. Melinda May has done so much for him—and he’d killed a man for her, and there was something bonded between them that needed no words or explanation. 

Besides, it was May. She wouldn’t stick around long enough to let him finish the sentence, if he tried. 

Fitz feels like he finally has a purpose again that won’t kill him in the process, and he throws himself enthusiastically into the task. He’d been up late most of the evening and had finally made a significant breakthrough, but at that point he’d needed sleep more than he’d needed to run the simulations. 

It’s five thirty in the morning when he wakes with a restlessness in his bones, so he moves quickly to get dressed and head to the lab. He doesn’t expect Jemma to be there, but she is—her hair pulled away from her face as she runs blood analyses and examines tissue samples. 

“Jemma,” he says quietly, attempting not to startle her. “You’re up early.” 

She turns and looks at him with a little smile. “I could say the same to you, Fitz.” 

“Yeah, well, simulations wouldn’t let me sleep,” Fitz replies easily, moving toward his computer. She nods. 

“I know the feeling,” she hums. “But of course you knew that.” 

He grins suddenly, remembering a moment that he can’t quite believe he’d forgotten. “Yes, I do know that. Banging on my bloody door at four in the morning.” 

He raises his voice to a falsetto and attempts to transform his own Scottish brogue into something resembling her light English lilt. “Wake up, Fitz, I’ve got it! I’ve got it! We’ve got to go to the Sim Lab this instant!” 

She gasps, jaw dropping as she looks at him. “You know I hate it when you do that!” 

He just chuckles, typing swiftly on the keyboard in front of him while still looking at her. “And I hated you waking me up at four in the morning, but we don’t always get what we want, Simmons.” 

He hardly calls her by her last name these days, but every now and then he throws it out there and he swears he sees her flinch every time. Even with the lightness of his tone, Jemma still grimaces subtly. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, brow furrowed. 

“Hm? Oh, nothing at all, Fitz!” 

“Jemma, c’mon. You—every time I call you Simmons, you do that.” 

“Do what?” 

“You make that face.” 

Jemma shuts her eyes and releases a sharp breath through her nose. He watches her hands form loose fists at her side and he moves toward her on instinct. 

“I didn’t think—“ 

“I’d notice?” he finishes as he stands in front of her. “’Course I noticed. Pretty sure I know your face more than my own.” 

He means it as a joke but it lands heavily on both of them. Their circumstances have been less than ideal ever since the bottom of the ocean, and somehow they’d only gotten weirder with the introduction of her Spaceman into their private atmosphere. 

“You know everything about me,” she says thickly, opening her eyes and staring at him so intensely that it makes him shiver. 

“I doubt that,” Fitz shrugs, attempting to diffuse the moment. “Just—y’know, just most stuff.” 

Jemma laughs humorlessly. “No, Fitz, you do. You know everything about me, and I know everything about you. All the things that matter, we know about each other.” 

He swallows, blinking at her in confusion. “I mean, yeah, but—that’s, that’s not really new.” 

She steps forward and hugs him tightly, throwing his balance off for a moment before he raises his arms up to wrap around her. “I’ve missed you, Fitz.” 

“I’ve been right here,” he reminds her. 

“But I haven’t,” she murmurs against his neck. “And I’m so sorry for that.” 

He wants to tell her that it’s okay, he understands, all of those platitudes that he’s been telling her since her big reveal, but he doesn’t really have it in him because deep down, he knows it’s not okay, and he still doesn’t fully understand. 

But he does know one thing, and it’s something he needs to say and that she needs to hear. 

“I forgive you.” 

She shudders against him, tightening her arms around his neck and releasing a small whimper. 

“I’m going to fix this,” she insists. “I’m going to, and we’ll be—we’ll be fine, again. Things will go back to normal.” 

He laughs and releases her. She’s slower to let go of him and it both hurts and fills him with hope, simultaneously. 

“We left normal behind at the front doors of the Academy,” he says, brushing a couple of tears off of her face. “Now get back to work, Jemma, or at least stop distracting me.” 

She laughs, a full laugh that he hasn’t heard in a very long time, and moves to her station once again. He runs his simulations with varying levels of success, and listens to Jemma rambling both to herself and to him about the differences in biology and blood chemistry between Lash and Andrew. 

It strikes him with an idea. “Maybe if I could alter the electromagnetic shock in the panels—“ 

“—we could somehow infuse a biological component, which would allow us to—“ 

“—to prevent him from shifting, and once we can prevent him from shifting—“ 

“—he can’t kill anymore Inhumans!” they finish together triumphantly. Both of there eyes are alight, brightened by the kind of euphoria that only a truly wonderful discovery brings up in either of them. 

A cough in the doorway breaks their spell, and they turn in unison to see Will standing there, looking at them inscrutably. 

“Hello!” Jemma says brightly, but he knows her well enough to hear it for what it is—a poor attempt at happiness. 

“Hey,” Will replies, voice a bit gruff. “I brought you some coffee.” 

He holds up the mug and Jemma’s brittle smile falls right off of her face. With a shocking amount of ferocity, she shakes her head. 

“I don’t like coffee,” she bites out. Will flinches, and Fitz feels very much like he should not be here for this, but he’s still in the middle of a simulation and their uncomfortable love triangle is invading his lab space. 

“What? Who doesn’t like coffee?” 

“Me!” Jemma exclaims, tossing her hands up with a roll of her eyes. 

Will licks his lips, looking away from her. “Alright. Well, sorry. I’ll leave you guys to it, then.” 

He nods at Fitz and then leaves, an awkward silence hanging between them. 

“That was rather rude of me,” Jemma admits remorsefully. “It’s just—even when we first met—“ 

She lets her sentence hang there, but Fitz knows exactly what she means. She’d never told him, that she preferred tea over coffee and perhaps it was a lucky guess given her homeland, but he’d made a steaming pot in his dorm room late one night while they were compiling their very extensive and overachieving lab report for their first assignment together. 

Fitz tries not to think too hard about what this means for her and Will, and for him and Jemma, and for all of them, really. It seems inconsequential, but he’s always noticed everything about Jemma, and he’s noticed that her responses to Will have become snappy and short, that he often doesn’t understand her explanations, that he often looks at her strangely when she gets overly excited about something disgusting. 

They work the rest of the morning in tandem, and for the first time since he started walking around on his own, Will doesn’t appear in the lab as Jemma’s shadow. 

They get more work done than they have in a long time. 

 

[5.]

She knows him, inside out. Will had gone home two weeks ago, finally reuniting with his family. He’d asked her to come with him and she’d had no choice but to decline, no option but to come clean with him about how she’d tried to leave him behind on the planet in her desperate desire to move forward in her life with Fitz. She’d admitted that the feelings she’d had for him on Planet Death had not been replicated in the same way on Earth—and he’d had no choice but to confess the same of her. It had been amicable but still rather sad. She’d spent an evening eating chocolate and drinking wine with Bobbi and Daisy, and then she’d moved forward. 

So she knows that Fitz is avoiding her more now than he had been when she’d told him about Will or even when they’d gotten Will back. She finds him in the locker room, in a strange and somewhat cruel twist of fate. He straps on his tact vest and turns to look at her.

“Jemma,” he says, surprised. 

“You weren’t going to tell me?” she asks, voice tinged with hurt. 

“It’s just a small mission. Didn’t seem worth mentioning.” 

“No mission is a small mission,” she sighs, stepping closer toward him. “You’ll be careful?” 

“I’ll get the job done,” he answers. This time, his voice is gentle when he says it. It doesn’t sting like it had a million years ago. She takes his hands in hers as he finishes. “Like I always do.” 

“I noticed,” she whispers. 

His eyes crinkle a little bit as he smiles down at her, and she feels him rub small circles on the backs of her hands with his thumbs. It makes her sigh in contentment as she shuts her eyes. 

“I’ll be okay,” he assures her. “It’s just me and Hunter—“ 

She snorts. “That is not comforting in the slightest, Fitz. I’d feel much better if you two had a third to keep you in line.” 

“Hey! We make a great team, he and I!” 

His indignance pulls a giggle from her and she catches that look he gives her, the one full of fondness and awe, and she can’t take it anymore, she steps forward and captures his lips with hers. 

It’s soft and sweet, a hello and a goodbye all wrapped into one, holding all the promise of a “see you soon”, a “maybe there is.” 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she says against his mouth as she draws back the slightest bit. They’re both a little breathless from the kiss so it takes him a moment to respond. 

“You noticed.” 

“Of course I noticed, Fitz.” 

“I just wanted to give you space.” 

She pulls back a little further, forgetting to question him as he nuzzles his nose against hers. “Space? Since when have we ever required space?” 

He gives her a significant look and she shakes her head. 

“Alright. Fair point.” 

“Just didn’t want you to feel pressured, is all. I know that Will—“ 

“Will nothing,” she cuts him off. “We’ve been over this a thousand times, Fitz, and I’m honestly just so tired of my time on that planet dictating my life. It’s got nothing to do with where I want to go next.” 

“And where’s that, then?” 

“With you.” 

He beams, pulling her in to a slightly more heated kiss than the last one before reluctantly tugging himself away from her when Hunter shouts at them to break it up from the doorway. 

“Wheels up in five,” Hunter informs them with a wink. 

Jemma moves forward, peppering his face with kisses. “Be careful,” she warns. 

“Never am,” he replies cheekily. 

They walk toward the jet, hands clasped together. 

“I’ve noticed,” she tells him, giving him a little squeeze before he gets on the plane.

He kisses her again, briefly, and it almost feels like he’s doing it to convince himself that he can really do that, now, with no solar systems or astronauts between them. 

“There definitely is!” he shouts at her, walking backward onto the jet. It takes her a moment to understand what he means, but when she does, she beams. 

Daisy appears at her side, smirking as she links an arm with Jemma’s. 

“You two look happy as hell.” 

“We are,” Jemma grins. “Hey, I’m going to need your help with something.” 

Daisy looks at her, head tilted to the side. “What’s up?” 

“First, I need you to help me pick out a dress. And then we need to make a dinner reservation.”

“Okay I know I’m supposed to be chasing down Lash or whatever,” Daisy says slowly, an excited smile blooming on her face, “but this is just so much better.” 

It almost feels like the days on the Bus, as the two of them tear apart both of their closets in the search for a perfect second-first-date dress. 

By the time the jet lands, Jemma is standing anxiously but excitedly in the hanger, a dark blue dress hugging her curves as she fidgets in her black heels. He steps off and spots her immediately. He momentarily looks confused, but then he smiles so brightly she’s sure he might blind someone. 

She rushes toward him to hug him, relieved to see him in one piece after a two-man mission with Lance Hunter. 

“Now go clean up,” she teases. “We’ve got a date.” 

She’s never seen him run so fast.


End file.
